The Cottage Orné Quilt

The Cottage Orné Quilt
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Sunday 17 October 2010

Ceredigion Star Quilt

I don't do replicas but prefer to say that I am "inspired by" or make "in the spirit of".  Anyway it is impossible to replicate a Welsh wool quilt because the fabrics used then are no longer made.

There was a period in our history when our quilts were entirely homegrown;  the woollen cloth was manufactured in our mills and made from the fleeces of the thousands of sheep grazing our hilly countryside. Clumps of this wool were often gathered from the hedgerows by the quilters and cleaned and carded to use as padding in their quilts.  Sometimes the cleaning process wasn't too thorough and many quilts were ruined when washed because - well I will leave it to your imagination!

I saw this picture on the Internet a while ago -


It was from an exhibition of Welsh Quilts from Ceredigion Museum held at the Green Mountain College in Vermont.  I had never seen this quilt before and immediately thought that I could do a scaled down version and make it into one of my Little Welsh Quilts. The original quilt was made of woollen cloth but I used cotton fabric from my stash.  I based the colours on the picture but when I eventually saw the original quilt I hadn't quite got it right.  Instead of blue surrounding the central red star, it should have been dark green!  But hey, it's not a replica so it doesn't matter!

I made up my own quilting design because as my quilts are small there is less room to do the large swirling patterns of full sized bed quilts, so one has to choose motifs carefully so as not to distort the patchwork. Now when I look at the finished quilt I feel that I should have done a bit more quilting, but it's difficult to go back and as I have a stack of little quilts waiting to be quilted it may never get done?

7 comments:

Radka said...

I love this quilt, it's the one in your header picture, right? I think that the amount of quilting is just enough, I like the heart design very much. Beautiful:))

Jan said...

Love your rendition! There is a quilt that I completed over 15 years ago that still needs more quilting in the border. Yours looks ideal to me!

MARCIE said...

This quilt wants to hug me, I can feel it. We have bonded! Well done Mary!

Nyla said...

Your rendition is just beautiful! Can you share the finished size? I just received my copy of your book in the mail today and am looking forward to perusing it. Thanks for sharing.

Little Welsh Quilts and other traditions said...

Thank you Nyla. The quilt is 30in. square. Hope you find the book useful?

Sue said...

Love your rendition of this quilt Mary- Love the quilting too.
Thanks for sharing

antique quilter said...

Ah yes I agree inspired by antique quilts is the name of my blog!
I agree most quilts I make are inspired by antique quilts cause how can we reproduce it exactly? or I use patterns that others have made from antique quilts.
I love your star quilt just so beautiful....I love your fabric choices...
thanks so much for sharing it with us
Kathie